


The Steppes of Central Asia Affair

by Taylor Dancinghands (tdancinghands)



Series: UNCLE through the Aurora [2]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tdancinghands/pseuds/Taylor%20Dancinghands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon and Illya (and their daemons, Saphina and Pasha) are sent out to the wide and barren lands bridging Kazakhstan, Siberia and Mongolia to mediate a dispute between the Ice Bears and some of the Windrider horse tribes of the area. UNCLE thinks that Thrush may be up to something, but there will be no chance of finding out if the two groups break out into open conflict. Our UNCLE agents must discover the true source of the grievances before peace can be made and Thrush's plans foiled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: "...could have gone rather better."

**Author's Note:**

> Naturally, my depiction of the Ice-Bear/Armoured Bear and Windrider lives and society are an amalgam of Pullman's work and my own take on a 'His Dark Materials' version of traditional Mongol culture. About the latter I have recently been informed by a National Geographic reader that I've used frequently with my ESL students, but also two absolutely beautiful films by Mongolian filmmaker Byambasuren Davaa. I highly recommend both [The Story of the Weeping Camel](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373861/?ref_=nm_knf_i1) and [Cave of the Yellow Dog](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432325/?ref_=nm_knf_i2).
> 
> Thanks to my Beta: gevr

Napoleon Solo waved yet another fly away from his face with a frown, unable to stop himself from gazing with envy at the Windrider horsemen sitting with him and Illya under the shade of the yurt. The Horsemen's mounts, standing each beside his own rider just outside the yurt's rolled up sides, would obligingly whisk away the bothersome insects from their riders' faces with their tails. Napoleon's own black panther daemon, Saphina, lay stretched out on the colorful silk carpet in front of him like a guardian, but her tail only twitched when a fly landed directly on it. 

Sitting opposite him on the other side of the yurt, his partner, Illya Kuryakin shook his own head, blonde locks fluttering briefly as the pests were momentarily dislodged. His own arctic fox daemon, Pasha, made a half-hearted attempt to snap a fly out of the air, but Illya hushed him. Out beyond the yurt on the open steppe, the wind blew brisk and steady under the brassy sun, but the delegates from among the Windriders and Ice-bears had chosen this place, in a little dell beside a stream and out of the wind, for their meeting.

"I say again, Chieftain Ivoson, I understand your words clearly, but you do not seem to understand mine." This was Nergui of the Windriders, spokesman for the tribal heads of the Band of the Barren Heights, the Windrider Band which held control of, and demanded fees for the use of, the north-western region of Mongolia bordering on Siberian Russia. "I am not empowered to negotiate these fees," Nergui continued intractably. "No one is. The amount is derived by the collective will of the clan heads and cannot be changed."

Byrn Ivoson, menacing in his rather extensive armour, stood abruptly, filling over half the yurt with his bulk before turning to pace away. He shook himself, as if making an (altogether unnecessary, in Napoleon and Saphina's opinion) show of the heavy iron plates enclosing his powerful body, then he returned to stand at the yurt's threshold, looking around at the seated Windriders, each clad in the heavy brocade silk robes, brightly colored to indicate their clan.

"Do not think I misunderstand you, horseman," he said, teeth showing as he spoke. "I understand more than you think. I understand that this is ten times what you have ever asked, in any visitor's tribute, and that you think us gullible fools to demand such an amount."

"I do not deny that others are asked to pay less," answered Nergui cooly, "but those were other Windrider visitors, who made it clear to us what their business was on our lands. Let me bring word of your reasons for coming here to the clan leaders, and perhaps they will reconsider."

"And have I not made it clear enough?" Ivoson all but roared, "that our business is none of yours!" A little dusting of wool fibers, dislodged from the yurt roof by the armoured bear's volume, came drifting down over the party, and another of the Windriders, Batu, the UNCLE local contact, who'd been sitting next to Napoleon, rose to dust himself off.

"Perhaps," he said with practiced deference, "we have said all there is to say for now. Chieftain Ivoson, the questions you came with have been answered, I think, if not to your liking. We should all take time now, to contemplate further options, yes?"

Napoleon and Illya, along with their daemons, kept silent. They were here strictly as observers during these negotiations, but they were also there to spot trouble, of the feathered sort. Fomenting an interspecies war between the Ice-bears and the Windriders was just one of the ways Thrush might be playing this situation.

Happily, Byrn Ivoson seemed to be taking Batu's suggestion and soon he, along with his two more scantily armoured lieutenants, shortly made their farewells. Nergui and his three witnesses mounted up a moment later, riding off in the opposite direction.

"Well I suppose that could have gone worse," Napoleon said, watching them go. Batu did not ask 'how?' out loud, but his nonplussed expression did it for him.

"Inasmuch as no blood was actually spilled, nor vows of vengeance sworn," Illya put in, "you are correct. However, it could also have gone rather better."

"I'm not sure I see how," Pasha pointed out. "The Ice-bear chieftain was never going to react well to the amount of tribute being demanded, and the process for determining that amount is completely opaque. Not even other clan heads can influence it."

"The Windriders are a proud and independent people," Napoleon said as he and Illya made their way towards the UNCLE open-top range-rover and Batu to his horse, grazing nearby. "We're lucky they allowed UNCLE to have any involvement at all."

"That's true," Batu said with a nod. "But it isn't entirely true that the individual clan heads cannot influence the amount of tribute asked. The final amount is merely taken as an average of what each individual clan leader suggests. They are not supposed to collude or consult with each other, but of course they all know who among them holds some animosity against the Ice-bears, and if those few name an absurdly high amount it will naturally affect the resulting average."

"And what is the reason for that animosity?" Napoleon's Saphina asked as she leapt past Illya to take her place in the front seat next to Napoleon. Napoleon repeated the question for Batu, who was too polite to respond directly to anyone else's daemon.

"You know that there has never been any love lost between the Windriders and the Russians, be they Siberian tribe-folk, Cossacks or full blooded Romanoff nobility, yes?" Batu asked.

"It was mentioned in our briefing," Illya replied dryly.

"And that various shirt-tail cousins of the Czar's family," Batu continued as he rode alongside the UNCLE range-rover, shouting across to the two agents, "have traditionally hired companies of Armoured Bears as bodyguards… enforcers… hired muscle, as you Americans might say."

Napoleon shared a chagrinned smile with the Windrider as he paced along with them. He was still getting used to horses who did not spook at the sight of Saphina's black panther form, but the Windriders' horses were practically daemons, after all. They did not speak aloud, though they did, after a fashion, communicate with their riders silently, in ways that the riders themselves forbore to speak about. Unlike daemons, these 'spirit-steeds' came from one particular herd, running free on the central steppes, and they would simply appear at the yurt of a family where a birth was imminent. More often than not, the mare would give birth even as the human child was being born. She would stay until the foal was weaned, by which time its bond with the infant would be well secured, then disappear to rejoin her herd.

"So you're saying," Illya interpreted from the back of the rover, "that some, but not all of the clan heads may have something personal against the Ice-bears, and will do what they can to queer the deal?"

"That is one possibility," said Batu, spurring his horse. "Come to my yurt after dinner. I have begun to assemble profiles of some of the clan leaders and we can discuss which of them are most likely to be causing trouble."


	2. Act 1: "A remarkable sense of smell."

Illya and Napoleon were, in fact, staying in a yurt right next to the one where Batu lived with his wife and two young children. Normally his brother-in-law stayed there, but he was out on the range with the herds of sheep and small, two-humped bactrian camels, whose wool and milk were locally prized. Batu would arrive home well before the two UNCLE agents and their range-rover, however, as he and his sure-footed spirit-steed would go cross-country, whereas Napoleon would be constrained to driving on some of the worst roads he'd ever encountered —and Napoleon had encountered his fair share of bad roads.

"So, it looks like we're going to have to go and lean on some of the individual clan leaders tomorrow," Illya said, holding fast to Pasha lest he be flung out of the jolting rover.

"Yes, which means hours and hours of driving on these wonderful roads," Napoleon said. "And as much as I'd like you to take your share of this delightful chore, I'm wondering if I might have more success going on my own."

"You think two of us will look too much like strong-arm tactics?" Illya asked.

"I think you look too much like a Russian, partner mine," Napoleon said bluntly. "Plus, I think we'd all like to know what the Bears are actually up to, that they don't want to tell the Windriders about."

"That makes sense," said Illya. 

"Something definitely smells off about those Bears," Pasha confirmed, "but how will we get to their camp, if Napoleon is taking the rover?"

In the end, they agreed that Napoleon would drop Illya off a few miles from the Bears' camp, early in the morning before he went on his rounds of the local Windrider camps. Batu thought it a sound plan, for he too suspected that the Bears were withholding something of importance. He supplied Napoleon with a map marked with Windrider camp locations and notes about who was more predisposed against the Ice Bears, and together they planned a route that had Napoleon travelling in a convoluted loop so that he finished the day headed in the direction of the Bears' camp. Illya would call on his communicator when, and where he needed to be picked up.

They dined, once all the planning was done, on spicy mutton curry served with sheep's milk yogurt and milky, salted tea. An obligatory toast was drunk at the finish of the meal with Mongolian arkhi, or milk vodka, which Napoleon had to work at not making a face when he drank, but which Illya said he could get used to. They retired to their guest yurt afterwards, and although they slept together, daemons at their feet, they'd long ago made a rule to keep business and pleasure separate. 

Even when they did not feel the need to set a watch (Batu's aged but canny old heard dog doing a more than adequate job of that) both Napoleon and Illya knew that they could not ever afford to let their guard down on a mission they way they did when they pleasured each other. They leaned across to kiss each other goodnight, and let the kiss linger just a little, but they were both tired too, and would be waking with Batu, before sunrise. They slept close, limbs intertwined comfortably, and woke thusly as well, refreshed and ready for the new day.

 

Besides having to fight and shoot, drive defensively, build or defuse bombs and so forth, all UNCLE agents were trained in diplomacy as well. Between the two of them, Illya was rather better at hotwiring cars and defusing bombs, and Napoleon was the one who could genially discuss polite nothings with crabby, lecherous and camel-smelling old tribal chieftains for hours without actually having to murder them. Napoleon could not wait to tell Illya how lucky he was to have missed this.

The one thing Illya might have managed better was the required imbibing of various sorts of fermented dairy products (from an astonishing variety of sources). Napoleon was just washing the taste of the most recent out of his mouth with the contents of a flask he'd stashed in the rover's glove box when he heard his communicator signal. It was early, he thought warily, for Illya to be calling… if all had gone as planned.

"Napoleon, I'm glad I caught you," came Illya's voice as soon as he answered. As he listened, Napoleon could hear a loud crashing noise in the background, but Illya didn't give him a chance to inquire.

"There are clearly humans taking part in whatever the Bears are up to. There are a couple of supply sheds with various types of equipment Bears would never use, and a radio shack, which I'm investigating at the moment…" (crash!!) "I've found a codebook, which almost certainly contains Thrush radio codes…" (CRASH!!)

"Illya, what in the blazes…?"

"Yes… unfortunately, it seems that Byrn returned rather sooner than expected…" There was another crash, followed by a splintering sound. Napoleon was already starting the rover and putting it in gear.

"Napoleon, did you know that bears have a remarkable sense of smell?"

"Yes, I did," Napoleon answered, stepping on the gas.

"He knew I was in the radio shack, the second he returned to camp. It's uncanny, really. At any rate…" Napoleon heard more splintering and steered the car off the road to drive directly across country, suspension be damned.

"At any rate," Illya continued a little breathlessly after a moment, "I've sent Pasha ahead to where you dropped me off, with the code book, which should prove fairly incontrovertible evidence, should we be able to link it to Thrush. I have a feeling I'll want a lift myself, assuming there's enough of me left after the angry Armoured Bear gets through the door here…" A huge, splintering crash, followed by a loud wrenching sound interrupted, and then naturally the communicator went dead.

Napoleon didn't bother calling out his partner's name, dropping the communicator on the seat next to Saphina to take the wheel in both hands and step on the gas. Neither one spoke. Twenty or so bone-wrenching minutes later, Saphina alerted Napoleon to Pasha's presence, the little silver-grey fox all but invisible in a clump of tundra grass. He leapt up onto the rover's hood as soon as it slowed, then into the passenger compartment, dropping Illya's dangerously-won code book onto the seat.

Like his human, Pasha would do his duty, even when, as Napoleon could see from the trembling in his ears, he was all but consumed with anxiety. Illya and his Pasha could endure more than most, having endured the gruelling Russian Secret Service training that allowed them to be separated by a far greater distance than any save the witches, with their avian daemons. Napoleon and Saphina could not bear to be more than a dozen yards apart, whereas now, with his human in grave danger, Pasha had remained waiting for Napoleon as ordered, almost a quarter of a mile from Illya.

"Which way?" Napoleon asked, putting the rover back in gear. Pasha whined and pointed the way and Napoleon stepped on the gas again. 

The Bears had built their camp in a low spot, probably to avoid being seen, so the first sight Napoleon had was of the radio mast, a girdered, sky-ward pointing needle supported by surrounding guywires. Moments later the rover topped a rise and the whole camp was revealed, just as Illya had described it. A dozen or more typical Ice-Bear long-tents were arrayed in a loose circle, with two very non-traditional equipment sheds set off to the right and just in front of them, where Napoleon's gaze turned immediately, the radio shack, clinging to the base of the tower he'd seen earlier.

Napoleon had known that his arrival would be announced, as the range rover had taken some hits during the recent cross-country trek, not only to the suspension, but also the muffler. As a result, his first view was of a frozen tableau, with both participants looking straight at him. Byrn Ivoson's expression was hard to read, with his face as well as much of his body clothed in armour, but his body language, one massive paw pinning Illya to the ground, the other poised just above Illya's head, to strike or maim, was crystal clear. Illya's face showed a mix of pain and relief, and his complexion was too pale, probably as a result of the blood soaking his pants leg and visibly pooling beneath him.

Napoleon gave himself a full beat to stifle the anxiety he felt and put on the affable and disarming persona he employed for defusing sticky diplomatic situations and hostage negotiations. Securing Illya's safety was a goal concurrent with UNCLE's, but not at all costs; that was something both agents understood intimately. In that moment Napoleon was vaguely aware of the silver streak that was Illya's Pasha, racing to his human's side. When Napoleon stood, hands visible and relaxed as he exited the car, Saphina slipped out alongside him, a cool shadow to his cool poise.

"Forgive me for interrupting," he began as he approached, watching Byrn for any sign that he'd gotten close enough. "But may I ask you to reconsider your actions?"

Byrn lifted his lip to reveal blood-stained white teeth, but made no other move.

"I don't know if you are familiar with the U.N.C.L.E, sir," Napoleon continued, coming to stand just beyond the immediate range of the Armoured Bear's powerful paws, "or of the work we do around the world. I believe you saw our credentials in the last meeting."

"Whoever you are, it's nothing to do with us," Byrn snarled at last. "You come snooping into our business, you pay the price."

"Whether or not UNCLE has any business with the Ice Bears," Napoleon replied, "I'm afraid we almost certainly have business with the people who built those sheds, and that radio transmitter. And if you have allied yourself with them, then I'm very much afraid that it is the Bears that will be paying, and more than likely a much higher price that you've anticipated."

Now Byrn raised his head and his snarl became a sneer. "Do you think to threaten me, UNCLE man?"

"Absolutely not," Napoleon said, spreading his hands. "UNCLE stakes its reputation on peaceful means to achieving peaceful goals. Our Enforcement arm is occasionally called upon to enforce the law with strength of force, but you'll find, if you care to investigate, that UNCLE is widely known as an honest broker. We'll have nothing to do with double dealing or blackmail, and take no reprisals. Naturally, UNCLE has enemies, and while we'll do what we can to protect you from them, if you are protecting them, then our hands are tied."

"Insolent weakling!" Byrn growled, pressing his paw more heavily on Illya so that he grimaced in pain. "How am I to believe that you are not all colluding with each other, you two-leggers!"

"Thrush has already crossed him," Saphina said softly, echoing Napoleon's own thoughts. "His anger hides fear; I can smell it."

"Sir," Napoleon began placatingly, "Chieftain Ivoson, if our enemy has put you under some threat, we may be able to help…"

"I need no help!" Byrn declared, standing to his full intimidating height and releasing Illya, though it was clear that he was in no way able to flee. "You have one of mine and now I have one of yours. You will return my mate to me and then your man will be returned."

"His mate!?" exclaimed Saphina. Napoleon pinched the bridge of his nose desperately.

"I swear to you sir, on my honor, UNCLE knows nothing about the whereabouts of your mate…" Napoleon began.

"What honor would that be?" Byrn retorted, dropping to crouch over Illya again. "Swear by something which you possess instead!"

Napoleon wanted to beat his head against something. "By what would you have me swear, sir? By my country's flag? By UNCLE? By the life of my partner which you hold in your hands? Your hostage is going to bleed to death before I can even determine the location of your missing mate, much less rescue her from our mutual enemies. What good will he do you then?"

"If that is the case then perhaps it is better I make an example of him now, that all may know the consequences of crossing an Armoured Bear." Napoleon felt his vision narrow, to Illya's alarmed expression as he tried to scrabble away, to Pasha, snarling in the face of the massive bear as he raised a deadly, armoured paw.

"Sire, I beg you," Napoleon cried, the words leaving his mouth before he was hardly aware of them. "He is my partner, and my own mate as well. Would you not have the one who holds your mate's life in his hands to show mercy?"

Byrn hesitated, though Napoleon did not think he had changed his mind and sought desperately for further arguments that might stay his hand. Then a new voice intruded into the scene that did.

"Uncle!"

All five heads turned abruptly towards the sound.

"Uncle, for Freya's sake, what are you doing? How can this bloodshed do ought but make things worse?"

Napoleon all but collapsed in relief as he saw Byrn step back, but his first remark was not to the female bear who'd spoken them. "Your mate?" he said, staring incredulously at Napoleon. The look Illya was giving him told Napoleon that he'd be hearing about this for some time to come, but at the moment he really didn't care.

"These two-leggers take mates as they please," the new bear said, coming to stand before the larger, more heavily armoured chieftain, Illya lying prone between them. "It's of no concern to us, save that the dark-haired one's words are worth considering."

"Consider mercy?" scowled Byrn. "Mercy is for the weak!"

"A show of mercy is meaningless unless one has the power to grant it," the newcomer, presumably Byrn's niece, pointed out. "And besides, do you really believe that whoever had the means and ability to take my mother's sister captive would send two more men to incompetently bungle their way into our camp the very next day?"

Napoleon and Saphina exchanged pained glances at the words 'incompetently bungle', but had to admit to her point. Now if only Byrn would see it. It seemed he did, for a moment later the Armoured Bear gave a discontented grumble, but stepped back, allowing Napoleon and Saphina to rush to Illya's side.

Saphina took a detour to fetch the first aid kit from under the rover's passenger seat, but arrived at Illya's side only a fraction of a second after Napoleon. Still it was enough time for Illya to scorch Napoleon with a gaze that would have reduced Napoleon to a cinder had he the power to do so.

"What the hell did he do to you?" Napoleon asked, ignoring Illya's look and instead addressing his torn and bleeding thigh. The two bears had withdrawn a short distance to continue their discussion in private, though the looks Byrn threw in their direction from time to time suggested to Napoleon that he was not entirely ready to let them go yet.

"After Byrn tore the door off the radio shack, I attempted to evade him by crawling under the desk… to buy time!" he amended at Napoleon's amused look. "At any rate, he just stuck his head in through the door, grabbed my leg," (with his teeth, Napoleon filled in silently, with an inward wince) "and dragged me out. He immediately began questioning me about the location of his missing mate, about which, naturally, I knew nothing."

"Not that he believed you," Napoleon muttered knowingly, carefully cutting open Illya's trouser leg and grimacing at what he saw. "So you think it's Thrush behind it?" he asked.

"I know it is," Illya replied. "They haven't exactly taken measures to hide their presence. There's Thrush marked equipment in the sheds, and a Thrush uniform jacket hanging in the radio shack. They must have assumed that the Bears wouldn't know them, and that no one else who did would come around."

"Arrogant as always," Napoleon said, handing the roll of bandage to Saphina who, along with Pasha, was actually doing a good job of helping Napoleon with the bandaging. They'd had practice, over the years. "Any ideas what they're looking to accomplish here, besides general mayhem and chaos?"

"There were no obvious indicators, and most of whatever equipment is meant to be stored in those sheds is out with the rest of the bears," Illya said, wincing as Napoleon's ministrations occasionally pained him. "It looks like some of it consists of metal detectors, though, and possibly also geiger counters. That's based on a few spare parts and packing crates I found."

"Metal detectors and geiger counters?" Napoleon said. "That could mean almost…" He broke off as he saw the smaller Armoured Bear approaching.

"Gentlemen," she began, her deep but melodious voice the only thing giving away her gender. "Our chieftain, my uncle, is not yet convinced that you are not involved in the disappearance of his mate, but I have convinced him to give you a chance to prove otherwise."

"There's nothing we'd rather do, Miss..." Napoleon replied, tying off the bandage and helping Illya to sit upright.

"Siglinda," the bear answered. "And you are?"

"Forgive me," Napoleon said, standing and dusting himself off. "I am Napoleon Solo and this is my partner, Illya Kuryakin. Agents of UNCLE, at your service." He produced his official UNCLE ID from his vest pocket to show her.

"I have heard something of this organization," she said, looking over Napoleon's credentials. "Some say they uphold law and order in the world, others say that they meddle where they are not wanted."

"The latter would certainly be the Czar's opinion, yes?" said Illya.

"Many in the Imperial family think so, but not all," answered Siglinda. "I spent five years in Moskva as bodyguard to one of the Czarinas and overheard much that was presumed to be beyond my understanding. I was keen to leave all the political machinations, maneuvering and betrayals behind when I returned to the northlands, but I swore I would never be ignorant again."

"Then you serve your people well," Illya said, reaching a hand up for Napoleon to help him to his feet. Napoleon was not so sure Illya should be on his feet but knew better than to say so. "Reserve your own judgement on UNCLE until you see what we do here, and you will doing them a service as well."

"Mind you," Napoleon put in, steadying Illya with a hand around his shoulders, "we make no promises, save that we will do our best to discover who is behind this kidnapping."

"And then?" Siglinda demanded. "Whose laws will you enforce?"

"If the crimes concern Bears, then it's the Bears' laws and Bears' justice that will apply," Napoleon said.

Siglinda gave them both a long, measuring gaze. "If this is true," she said at last, "then you will have won the respect of this bear, at least."

"I would consider myself well rewarded," Napoleon replied with his most beguiling smile. Who knew if it would work on bears, he thought, but it was worth a try.


	3. Act 2: "...must go on pretending to be idiots."

The ninety minute drive back to Batu's camp was not exactly silent on account of the rover's damaged muffler, but Illya said not one word, regardless. Napoleon had tried suggesting making the longer drive to the local clinic to get his leg looked at, but Illya had dismissed that notion with a scowl and Napoleon had known better than to argue the point.

Batu's wife, Nansal, would do as good a job of stitching Illya up as anyone in the clinic —in fact she volunteered there occasionally— and if Illya's injury were more serious than what she could deal with, he most likely would have bled to death already, and certainly wouldn't have the energy to keep up his smoldering fury with Napoleon.

Arriving at Batu's place just as the sun was setting, Illya kept up a stoic front while Nansal stitched him up. She then fed them both bowls of steaming hot, fortifying broth, warm flatbread and soft cheese while Napoleon filled Batu in on the results of the day's adventures. He followed with an even briefer report on same to UNCLE headquarters at Ulan Bator by communicator. They retired to their own yurt soon after, where Illya promptly set to readying himself for bed, still without a word spoken to Napoleon.

Napoleon settled himself on one of the cushions scattered about the richly carpeted floor with a sigh, loosening the tie that he'd donned in order to give the impression of a Westerner and outsider as he visited various Windrider clan heads. Pasha and Saphina had both remained as silent as their humans as the evening wore on, but were now exchanging troubled glances as the tension between the two agents did not subside.

Napoleon knew what Illya was angry about, of course, but by now he was feeling a bit put upon by extent of his partner's silent treatment. If Illya was angry with Napoleon, he thought, frowning at Saphina who seemed to think he ought to do something, then Illya should be the one to speak up first. From the other side of the room, where Illya sat, back to Napoleon on the edge of the sleeping platform, Napoleon thought he heard Pasha mutter the word, 'stubborn', in Russian, but he could have been talking about either one of them.

Napoleon sighed again, leaning back to gaze unfocused at the elegant starburst of trusses supporting the yurt's roof when he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his ankle, piercing and insistent. Even as he shouted his surprise and pain, he heard another cry, at the exact same moment, from the other side of the yurt.

"Sort it, gentlemen," said Pasha from the bed, letting go of Illya's elbow.

"Now," said Saphina, letting go of Napoleon's ankle.

Illya stood with a glower, rubbing his elbow before crossing his arms. "We agreed," he said at last. "Our personal lives do not come into our work, in any way whatsoever!"

"You're right, we did," Napoleon said.

"You promised that you would not let it affect mission priorities!" Illya continued.

"I did," Napoleon confirmed once more. He let the silence draw out rather than elaborating.

"But…?" Illya finally prompted.

"What was I supposed to do?" Napoleon said, finally giving voice to his exasperation. "Byrn was seconds away from taking your head off, quite literally. My mission priorities were to recover an agent in possession of important intelligence." He stood then, needing to move as he recalled the urgency of the earlier crisis.

"Fine!" conceded Illya, throwing up his hands. "But did that really necessitate the airing of our personal lives?"

"Look, I'm not saying that I thought it out in so much detail," Napoleon explained. "And I'm not saying that I was completely unaffected, seeing you on the ground with that… bear ready to bash your head in. It was a diplomatic hip shot… and it worked, you may have noticed."

"It gave him pause," Illya countered.

"Long enough for his niece to show up!" Napoleon pointed out. "I'll take what I can get, if it ends up with your head still attached to your shoulders. What other options did I have? If I'd come on strong, he'd have killed you for sure. If I'd feigned indifference, it just would have infuriated him. He wanted a reaction from me and he was going to up the stakes until he got one." Napoleon paused, saw Illya give a grudging nod, then continued.

"He's the big Armoured Bear. He's used to seeing people jump when he says 'jump'. I figured that if I acted in a subservient way, he might actually listen to me." And any UNCLE agent too proud to beg when the occasion called for it, did not last long in the job.

"And you threw in that bit about us…?" Illya said, though from the way he spoke Napoleon knew he already understood.

"To make it more believable, yes and, as a benefit, I didn't have to 'act' the part so much," Napoleon confirmed. "It was only after I'd said it that I realized how it put him in the position to be the better man… or rather, bear."

"Once again, the great Napoleon Solo is even more clever than he realizes," Illya said dryly, and Napoleon knew he was back in his partner's good graces.

"And that's what we love about him," Pasha now spoke up, slightly admonishing. "That and how he always shows up just in time to save our lives."

"Yes, and that," Illya said, slightly chagrinned. "Thank you for that, Napoleon."

"Naturally, there's nothing we wouldn't do or say to come to your aid," Saphina put in, "even if it may seem a bit… maladroit, at times."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry for using our personal lives as a… diplomatic tactic," Napoleon affirmed. "Though in my defense, I might well have said the very same thing if it had been Mark or April, or any other agent."

Illya made an odd face at that, as though he were tasting one of the locals' strange fermented dairy products which did not agree with him so much. Pasha chuckled.

"Now, suddenly, it does not seem so objectionable, hm?" he jibed, launching himself at Illya so that they both tumbled back onto the bed platform.

"Ow!" Illya complained. "Walking wounded here!"

"Shall I kiss it and make it better?" Napoleon offered, coming to lie beside his partner. It was Illya's lips he ended up kissing in the end, but Napoleon had no complaints about that at all.

 

The range-rover, it turned out, was totaled, as somewhere on its cross-country jaunt the day before the oil pan had been punctured, along with all the other damage to the suspension and muffler, and Napoleon had driven it dry to get to Batu's with Illya. That left horses as their remaining form of transport, but Nansal had rather stridently insisted that Illya not ride for at least three days.

Napoleon and Illya spent those days on research, pouring over local resources to discover what the Bears (and Thrush) might be looking for with metal detectors and geiger counters. Napoleon made daily rides to the nearest village with a Cultural Center and library (on the biggest horse Batu could borrow for him, as the local Mongol horses, while swift, were scarcely more than ponies).

Illya stayed at Batu's camp, pouring over maps and other materials he had as the local UNCLE contact. One of those maps he made marks on, of all the places that Bears from Byrn's group had been spotted, mostly in the forested hills north and west of the Bears' camp. It eventually gave them a fair idea of the territory that the Bears were searching, but little idea as to the reason why.

On the third evening of Illya's convalescence, Batu invited Nergui around for dinner. The Windrider spokesman had agreed to give his perspective on whether any of the clan heads might be persuaded to lower the amount of their demanded tribute. Nergui had been distant and coolly polite when he'd first been introduced to the UNCLE agents and seemed to regard their involvement as unasked-for, outside interference. Now, however, Batu reported that he spoke sincerely about wanting to help settle the dispute.

Napoleon and Illya both took this with a grain of salt, but acted with the utmost cordiality during dinner. Nergui, for his part, claimed to have taken a second look at UNCLE's involvement and had decided to lend his efforts to their cause whole-heartedly. To that end he asked the two agents to accompany him and meet with one of the clan leaders who he said might be swayed by a personal visit from UNCLE.

"He hates the Russians with a passion," the Windrider representative explained, "but he is fascinated with the West and the modern world. He welcomes all new technology from Europe and America, and welcomes their ideas, too. If he sees how the two of you, a Russian and an American, can put aside your differences to work together towards a better world, he may soften his own stance against the Bears."

Of course, the catch was that he couldn't tell them which clan leader this was, as that would break his vow of confidentiality as a representative. He would meet them tomorrow morning, he said, in the spot where the earlier meeting had taken place, and accompany them to the unnamed leader. Not even Batu could be told where they would be going or who they would be visiting.

"Surely I am not the only one who finds this whole situation highly suspicious," Illya opined later that evening as the two of them prepared for bed.

"Oh, it stinks to high heaven," Napoleon confirmed cheerfully. "I've seen more convincing jail-house conversions, but when Thrush goes to such obvious means to lay a trap, one feels almost obliged to fall into it."

"One does, eh?" Saphina commented dubiously.

"I don't know about you," Illya said, "but when I was in spy school, they rather stressed not falling into obvious traps."

"Certainly," replied Napoleon, "but they also surely taught you that when your enemy underestimates you, not to disabuse them of that fact until you can use it to your advantage."

"In other words," said Pasha, "as long as Thrush seems to think we are idiots, we must go on pretending to be idiots…"

"Until Thrush reveals enough of their plans that we can pull the plug and go home," Illya said with a sigh. "Though I'm still not at all clear on what they are at the moment."

"Actually," Napoleon said as he laid out his clothes to make dressing in the dark tomorrow morning easier. "I think I may have found out something that could have a connection to what Thrush is after. When I was researching local history and legends, especially concerning the area where the Bears have been working, I came across records concerning an event not quite sixty years ago, connected with that area. The sources I was looking at called it the 'Taiga Starfall', but I'm betting it's known by another name in the West."

"And what was it?" Illya asked, dropping down onto the bed platform to sit next to his partner.

"That, partner mine," Napoleon said, wrapping an arm around Illya's shoulders and pulling him down onto the bed to lie curled close beside him, "is a complete mystery."

 

It was certainly not the first time, Illya reflected, that he had seen an enemy appear literally out of nowhere, but it was the first time that the 'nowhere' in question consisted of a wide, treeless plain, on which nothing could supposedly hide.

"You know, these Central Asian steppes are nowhere near as flat as people say they are," Napoleon commented, gazing around at the dozen or so men on horseback surrounding them. They were clearly not Windriders, as their mounts were not of the local variety and they were all accompanied by daemons. Most were dogs of one sort or another, though one was a grizzled baboon and another was a sharp-eyed hawk who hovered just above her master —clearly the authority among this lot. Nergui, of course, was expecting them.

"You see," he crowed when they greeted him. "I told you they would believe me. They followed me just like a pair of little lambs."

The Thrush leader, a tall, lean man whose countenance matched that of his daemon's, ignored him, instead gesturing with his gun for Napoleon and Illya to dismount. That was when the truck, also appearing from behind an invisible rise, drove up, a large cage tied to the roof.

"I don't much like the look of this," Pasha said, crouching warily beside Illya.

"At least they don't mean to shoot us right here," Illya said. "That much seems clear."

"Let's play it nice for now," Napoleon murmured, hands carefully open and visible. "Maybe they'll take us right to where they've got Mrs Ice Bear stashed."

"Maybe," said Illya, unconvinced, though he had no better idea of his own. They watched as the cage was untied and removed from the roof of the truck, which was of the type Americans called a 'pickup truck' with a covering shell fastened over the bed to form an enclosed cargo compartment separate from the cab. Pasha and Saphina were herded into the cage, their compliance guaranteed by the guns held to their humans' heads. Next, the two agents were fitted with leg manacles, fastened —rather than with locks they could pick— with heavy bolts they could not open without a sturdy wrench.

They were then frisked quite thoroughly, relieved of all of their guns, knives and communicators and pushed into the truck, their manacles fastened together to a loop of iron rebar set in a cement beam the size of a railroad tie, laying in the truck's bed. A heavy thump and grating sound from above told them that the cage containing their daemons had been loaded onto the roof, then the doors at the back of the truck were closed and the engine started, and they were off… to wherever Thrush was taking them.

They went relatively slowly at first, as the truck traveled over the uneven and roadless ground. There were windows in the side of the shell that Illya and Napoleon could look out of, but the passing scenery was so featureless that it neither gave any clues as to where they were going nor offered any relief from boredom. When they finally came to a road the scenery began to pass rather more quickly.

The two agents exchanged dubious glances, watching the road behind them fall away more and more rapidly. It was no smoother or well kept than any of the other roads they'd driven in this region, but the driver evidently had orders from Thrush to get them where they were going as quickly as possible.

"Perhaps they've got a heftier suspension on this truck," Napoleon said as he, Illya and the other contents of the truck were thrown this way and that every time the truck hit a hole or a bump in the road.

"Or a higher undercarriage," Illya commented through clenched teeth, careful not to bite his tongue while being bounced around. The cement beam, spare tire, some length of chain and other random rubbish sharing the truck's cargo compartment with them made for a general cacophony, but both agents looked up in alarm when they heard a new sound coming from above.

A scraping, booming sound could now be heard from the top of the covering shell, every time the truck hit a bump, and it was getting worse… and moving around more. Illya and Napoleon both made attempts to alert the driver, banging on the window at the front of their compartment, but it was separated from the driver's cab and he naturally heard nothing. Instead, he only sped up more, so that the two agents had to cling to each other so as not to be hurled from one side of the compartment to the other.

Illya knew, without a doubt, that the heavy, twanging thud he heard was the sound of whatever cable or rope they'd used to secure the cage to the roof breaking, and Napoleon's wide-eyed look of alarm told him he'd drawn the same conclusion. Both stared out the back window in horror as the weight above them slid suddenly towards the back, then the falling cage was briefly visible in the window, then visible lying in the road behind them, then gone, lost in the dust of their passing.


	4. Act 3: "...you'll hear them long before you see them."

"No! Saphina!!" Napoleon's cry was one of visceral terror. Instinctively, he tried to rise, and would have hurled himself against the back window had Illya not caught him and stopped him. From Illya and Pasha's standpoint, this was a potentially useful development, as the fall would surely have broken open the cage and Illya's daemon could move freely, miles away from his human without difficulty. Illya and Pasha, however, were among the 57% of Russian Imperial Security Service trainees who had endured the separation training given to new recruits. Napoleon and Saphina never had, as UNCLE (as well as the US military) determined such training to be dangerous and inhumane. They weren't wrong, Illya had to admit, but at this very moment that lack of training placed Napoleon in horrific peril.

At no more than a few dozen yards separation from his daemon, Napoleon would experience a searing anxiety, profound enough to do permanent psychical damage in mere minutes. Of the 43% of Russian Security Service trainees who could not complete the separation exercises, Illya knew, a full 12% suffered permanent mental damage —a fact that the Czar's government constantly strove to sweep under the rug. Illya had seen those casualties for himself, and knew that there was nothing that he would not do to spare Napoleon from such a fate. But how could he? What could he do?

As his partner moaned and curled into an agonized ball, Illya cast about desperately for something that could help. Rendering him unconscious, he already knew, would not help and there was nothing here in the back of the truck that could be used for anything else. Was there anything on their persons that the Thrushies had not confiscated? Illya immediately thought of their shoes, both pairs of which had small hidden compartments in the heel.

Forcing his fingers to steadiness, Illya carefully pried the heel off his own shoes to take stock: there was a small, folding scalpel, a garrotte, sealed packets of antiseptic and morphine capsules. Napoleon's, which Illya had to removed from his shaking partner in order to open, contained two packets of matches, a tiny syringe of an experimental truth serum, and four 'cufflink' charges of explosive.

Beside him, Napoleon gave a wordless cry as the truck struck another hole in the road. This was wrong, Illya thought, and the wrongness of it burned in him. He found himself filled with rage at how his partner's dignity had been stripped from him. Not even Thrush would do such a thing on purpose; it was unthinkable, even for them. The carelessness, however, that was typical.

There must be something he could do. How, Illya asked himself, had he survived his own first separations in that horrible training so long ago? Even as he asked himself the question, an idea began to form in Illya's mind. Seizing the tiny syringe of 'truth serum' from among the items in Napoleon's shoe compartment, he read the advisory on the package, confirming what he recalled. The drug in the syringe mainly worked by making the subject extremely suggestible and compliant. Once injected, you might then be able to make an enemy believe that it was fine to tell you all his secrets… or make your partner believe that he could bear unbearable pain.

Gripping the syringe carefully in his teeth, Illya took hold of his partner by the shoulders, lifting him and steadying him so that Illya could meet his eyes.

"Napoleon! I need you to look at me," he spoke intently. "I need you to open your eyes and look at me, and listen to what I say."

"Illya…" It was a terrible effort for the man to speak, he could see, but he spoke nonetheless. "I… I can't… Gods help me, I can't…"

"Sshh, Napoleon," Illya shook him, just a little, even as the truck shook them both. "Listen to me. I'm going to help you, but you have to trust me. You do trust me, yes?"

"Yes… I do trust you… I do," Napoleon replied.

Illya didn't bother explaining, but simply opened Napoleon's jacket and shirt, exposing his arm. Napoleon watched, breathing harsh and rapid, as Illya tied off his partner's arm with a shoelace, found a vein and injected the serum. It went to work quickly, and by the time Illya had done up Napoleon's shirt and jacket again his pupils were already open and dark.

"Are you listening to me, Napoleon?" Illya demanded.

"I am," Napoleon answered. "I am listening… please, I need my Saphina… where is she?"

"Do you trust me?" Illya asked again.

"Yes… Illya, you know I do," came the answer.

"You will believe what I tell you," Illya pressed.

"Yes, I do… I'll always believe you," Napoleon said.

"Then you must believe me when I tell you that Saphina is coming for you," Illya said urgently, grasping his partner's shoulders tightly. "She is coming as fast as she can."

"S-Saphina is coming?" It twisted something in Illya's guts to hear his partner's voice so broken.

"She is coming, Napoleon," he reiterated. "I am telling you the truth."

"She's too far…" Napoleon spoke so softly Illya could hardly hear him over the noise in the truck. "Too far… it hurts so much…"

"I know it hurts," Illya said, and that was the Gods' honest truth. "But that doesn't matter now, because she's coming… She's coming for you."

"How long…?" Napoleon's body was wracked with pain, so that only Illya's arms were holding him up. "How long, Illya…?"

"Soon," Illya promised, knowing this to be sheerest fantasy. "Soon, I promise, Napoleon."

Indeed, if the cage had broken open enough for Saphina to escape immediately, she'd be breaking speed records to get back to Napoleon's side, and might even truly be here soon. There were too many other variables, however, and too many things that could go wrong to make his promise valid. As long as Napoleon believed it to be true, though, he might hold on to his sanity a little longer, and that was the best that Illya could hope for.

 

The truck came to a stop a little while later, having left the road and driven across yet more featureless country for five minutes or so. There was no building or any other distinguishing landmark here that Illya could see, but the five Thrush horsemen were there waiting for them, so there must be some purpose to stopping at this place. Illya watched for some reaction to the discovery of the missing daemons, and there was some gesticulating and shouting, possibly about the poorly fastened cage, but no further consequences seemed coming. That was a bad sign, Illya thought. He waited for their captors to open the truck and reveal their intentions, but instead the men on horseback dismounted and began to dig a small trench just behind the truck with shovels they'd evidently gotten from the truck's cab.

Illya did not connect the dimensions of the trench to the concrete beam they were attached to until the back of the truck was opened and two of the horsemen, remounted, fastened ropes to each end of the beam and dragged it, along with the two UNCLE agents, out of the truck and onto the ground. The beam settled into the trench so that it lay level with the earth and there was no way that two unaided men would be able to drag it any distance. The Thrush man with the hawk daemon now came to stand over them and explain why they'd been secured thusly.

"The Windriders will be driving their herds this way in about an hour or so," he said. "They'll be coming from that direction," he pointed past a low hill to their left "so you'll hear them long before you see them, but they'll only see you after you've been run over by at least half the herd. Nergui has promised that they'll be running at full speed by the time they cross this stretch, so perhaps your deaths will be relatively swift and painless."

Illya ignored the man's gloating and the pitying looks from the other Thrush men and their daemons, gathering his half-insensible partner into his arms with no regard whatsoever for what they might think. If he and Napoleon were truly about to die then it made no difference, and if they survived then these men would pay the full price for everything they'd done. Seeing as they would be getting no further reaction from the UNCLE agents, the Thrush men packed up, mounted up and drove or rode away. Within minutes all was still save the relentless, keening wind.

Beside him, Napoleon shuddered and moaned his daemon's name and Illya's fury burned hot in him again, that his partner might meet his end in such an undignified manner.

"Where is Saphina, Napoleon?" he reminded Napoleon of the promise he'd made, hoping against hope that the drug's influence would hold until… until it wasn't needed anymore.

"Sh-she's coming," Napoleon drew out with great effort.

"And when is she coming?" Illya reiterated.

"Soon. She's coming soon," Napoleon sighed, almost plaintively.

"That's right, lyubov," Illya murmured, bending his head to kiss his partner's forehead. "That's right." He felt his rage melt in the warmth of affection he felt for his partner and felt as well the strange tranquility that often came over him in the face of death.

As they sat still and quiet in the tall grass, the native denizens of the steppe came to move around them as if they weren't there. A mother bird, some kind of quail or grouse, Illya thought, followed by a handful of spotted chicks, came to scratch at the seeds and grains knocked onto the ground by the horses hooves. They came close enough to touch as Illya sat unmoving, then the shadow of a hawk flicked across them and in a flash the mother and her brood had vanished into the grass so that not even Illya could make them out.

Napoleon would grow restless from time to time, but when Illya made him repeat the dialogue he'd established with the drug he would quiet again. At least, Illya consoled himself, that chances were that Napoleon would never know what hit him, and perhaps it would be easier this way. Illya's partner had never had that fatalistic ability to face death as if it didn't matter the way Illya did. Napoleon would insist that it was natural to his Slavic nature, and perhaps it was.

If he were in his right mind now Napoleon would surely be testing their shackles, bloodying his fingers trying to loosen the bolts, repeatedly standing up to see the herd coming and to try to make then veer off. Napoleon would agree with Illya that these actions were all likely futile, but he would be as powerless to stop himself from doing them as he was to stop himself asking for his daemon now. Even Illya had to refrain from standing when he felt the first tremor telegraph itself through the concrete beam to which they were fastened. He knew that he would be able to hear the approaching herd long before they would become visible, and that he would feel the earth shuddering beneath those hundreds of pounding hooves before that. He felt it now, laying his hand flat on the rough concrete to confirm what he felt. Not much longer then, at least, he thought, drawing his partner… his lover, into his arms, to wait out the last.

"Illya," Napoleon murmured as Illya pressed his lips to his partner's eyes.

"Sshh, lyubov," Illya spoke into his ear. "Not much longer now."

"Illya… she's coming," Napoleon said, insistent. Illya could hear the thunder now, like real thunder in the distance but unceasing and growing steadily closer.

"I know, Napoleon, I know," Illya assured him, but instead of quieting, Napoleon struggled to sit up, hands gripping Illya's arms.

"No, Illya, she's coming," Napoleon said, eyes wide and… Illya now realized, clear —the pupils pinpoint sharp in the bright sun. "I mean she's really coming!"

"What!?" Illya exclaimed, looking around wildly, even as he felt within himself for the connection to his own daemon… and found him not far, and getting closer. "Yes!" he cried then, sensing something further from Pasha. He was not alone.

"Pasha too!" Illya said. "And I think he's bringing help."

"That's… good to hear," Napoleon replied, voice sounding strained, but oh so much better than a minute ago. "I sure hope they get here soon…"

"They must," Illya said, grasping his partner's hand. "Surely they must." Even as he spoke the words, Illya winced at the senselessness of them. Nothing in the real world of cause and effect guaranteed that their daemons would reach them before the horses he could hear growing ever closer, and furthermore, there was no guarantee either that they or their allies would be able to turn the living juggernaut of a stampede aside. Napoleon's hand squeezed his for a moment, communicating in that single gesture that he, too, understood that they were far from rescued yet.

They could hardly be said to be men of faith, either one of them, yet that was all they had at the moment. Faith, Illya would have once said, had never accomplished anything, and yet had it not been faith that had kept Napoleon sane these last few hours? Much about daemons remained inexplicable to modern science, Illya knew, to his frustration. Yet might faith not have a role to play in what daemons could do as well?

Maybe it was the drug, or maybe it was just that they thought far too much alike at times, but now Napoleon laid his hand on Illya's shoulder, gripping it in resolve.

"She will com in time," he said. "And she will stop them."

"Yes she will," Illya affirmed, laying his hand over Napoleon's.

They both struggled to their feet, turning and face the sound of the approaching herd. The dust cloud thrown up by their countless hooves was visible now, and the sound all encompassing. In moments the horses at the forefront became visible through the dust, short legged and long maned, they had their own majesty, Illya had to admit, even if, at the moment, they still represented a deadly force, rushing directly at them. He reached out an arm to pull his partner close, and found Napoleon reaching back to do the same.

The dust was already thick enough to make Illya blink his eyes when he thought he saw a lightning streak of inky black come at the herd from the right. Beside him Napoleon drew in a sharp breath and the inky streak materialized halfway between the two men and the approaching herd. It had something like a feline form now, though she seemed larger than Illya remembered, and surely he had never seen Saphina ever do what she did next.

Rearing up and lunging towards the lead horses, Saphina became the living embodiment of the most deadly nightmares, all midnight fur, teeth and claws. And then she screamed. Illya had read accounts of the hardiest of explorers being unmanned by the sound of a panther's scream. It had always struck him as a bit of writer's hyperbole, but now Illya was beginning to think that no writer could describe the terrifying effect of that banshee cry.

Even Napoleon went a little pale and the leading horses in the oncoming herd screamed in panicked reaction. Wheeling with terror, the whole first rank of the herd split, some to the left and some to the right. The momentum of the herd was such that not even Saphina's spectre of horror could stop it, but it could, at least, swerve to avoid hazards. The herd came on, parted abruptly at Saphina, who remained, threatening and yowling menacingly from time to time, and thundered past Napoleon and Illya to their left and right.

Illya felt his partner slump with relief just as he did the same. It was several minutes before the herd passed, in part because they finally began to slow once a little more than half the herd had gone by. When it was clear that the mass of horses had essentially lost its momentum Saphina dropped back down to all fours, shook a cloud of dust from her fur, and then turned to race for Napoleon.

She leapt into his arms with enough force to knock him flat if Illya hadn't been supporting him. Then Napoleon was down on his knees, face buried in her silky black fur as he wept with relief. Illya dropped down beside them, laying an arm over his shoulder, even as he wondered where his own daemon was. The answer came a moment later, as he heard the sound of an approaching motor.


	5. Act 4: "Now that's what I call cavalry!"

Illya stood once more, peering out past milling horses and remaining patches of untrampled, tall grass to see a group of five or six Windriders and one man in the uniform of a local constable riding a motorcycle. That would be Ganzorig, Batu's brother-in-law, who was a Windrider and had his own spirit steed, but which he preferred to protect from his occasionally dangerous official duties. Most visible of all among their rescuers, however, was the Armoured Bear —not quite as heavily armoured as the chieftain, so it was almost certainly…

"Siglinda!" Illya cried. "Now that's what I call cavalry!"

"Byrn's niece? She's here?" Napoleon said, hastily drying his face with the back of his sleeve. Illya handed him a handkerchief into which Napoleon voluminously blew his nose..

"That she is," Illya answered, "along with Batu and Ganzorig with a Windrider posse, and unless I'm very much mistaken they were guided here…" The silver furred figure Illya was looking for now popped up out of one of Ganzorig's motorcycle saddlebags and a second later was springing across the trampled grass and weaving fearlessly between the horses' hooves to launch himself into Illya's waiting arms.

Now Napoleon was rising to stand beside him so that he got big, wet fox kisses along with Illya. Suddenly, Siglinda, who had been standing upwind of Ganzorig's motorbike with her head raised for several moments, burst into a run, propelling her snowy bulk at remarkable speed toward one of the Windriders just now coming up with the herd.

"You!" she roared. "Where is my aunt!!!"

The man's horse startled and the rider himself pulled hard on the reins as though to wheel away and flee. It would be interesting to see, Illya thought fleetingly, who could run faster, a Windrider and his spirit steed or an angry, half-armoured Ice Bear. The race was curtailed, however, when Siglinda roared again. 

"Kidnapper!" she cried. "Your stench was all over the tent from which my aunt was stolen, but Byrn told me to leave you be, or you'd hurt her. Now I've done with waiting, you vermin! Tell me where you've taken her!"

At these words the horse skidded to an abrupt stop, and when the rider tried to urge him forward, brutally kicking his flanks, the horse thrust his head down and bucked him off.

"Noo!!" the man wailed as he pushed himself up off the ground to see his steed back away. "No, my Kifti! No! Please! I only wanted a new life for us, for both of us!"

Most of the recently arrived Windriders' attentions were drawn to this scene but Batu had finally spotted them, Illya saw to his relief, and cleared his way through the milling horses to approach.

"It is very good to see you, my friend," Illya greeted him, "but I hope you brought a tool kit."

Hands were shaken all around and Batu made a brief examination of the hardware binding Napoleon and Illya's ankles. "Ganzorig will have something, I'm pretty sure. I'll be right back."

The constable and his motorbike had putted their way over to where some of the other Windriders who'd been driving the herd were gathered. Batu caught up with him there, got something out of one of the saddlebags, and then returned to the two agents while Ganzorig made his way over to where Siglinda stood menacing over the fallen Windrider.

"The drivers Ganzorig was talking to over there said that Nergui asked to join the drive only yesterday," Batu reported as he applied the bolt cutters to Illya and Napoleon's shackles. "And that he was strangely insistent that the horses be driven precisely this direction."

"Nergui!" Napoleon said, rubbing his ankles as they were freed. "Again!"

"I presume Siglinda's testimony will be enough to put him behind bars for kidnapping at least," Illya said.

"It may be," Batu sad sadly, "but it hardly matters now. He has earned himself a fate worse than any we could mete out."

Illya, stepping gratefully free of his own shackles, looked at Batu curiously. "How so?" he asked.

"Spirit steeds cannot abide crimes such as this," Batu replied. "And they abhor even village life and will not go near a city. Nergui thought he could take the money from these criminals and start a new life in some town, with modern conveniences and a western lifestyle, and somehow still keep his spirit steed. Once or twice in every generation it happens. Always there is someone who doesn't learn, but it is terrible to watch, every time."

"What will happen to him?" Illya asked, even as a likely picture was forming in his imagination.

"If he agrees to exile, Ganzorig will probably let him go," Batu said sadly. "He may even let him keep any money he's gotten so far. It doesn't matter. We will find him, or hear about him in some weeks or months, all his money gone, living on the streets, alcoholic or addicted to drugs or gambling. They seldom live for more than a year or two, once they lose their spirit steed. Usually less."

"He will have to tell us where Byrn's mate is, and where Thrush has their camp before he's let go," Napoleon said. "But as for the rest of it, your people's justice takes precedence, as always."

Saphina and Pasha remained silent throughout all this, mainly too full of relief for words. Together the four of them plus Batu made their way over to where Ganzorig was putting Nergui in handcuffs. The man was clearly broken, weeping and calling for his steed, but the creature had already gone, lost among the herd. Napoleon's gaze was haunted as he watched the man being led away.

"It's not the same thing, you know," Illya said. "You and I, we couldn't live for a minute without Pasha and Saphina."

"I don't know," said Napoleon. "Maybe it's just… slower." He shuddered and Illya understood his horror. 

"It really can't be the same, though," Illya said. "Otherwise every Thrush operative would be deserted by their daemons and we'd be out of a job."

Napoleon thought about this for a moment, his gaze on his daemon, who walked with her flank brushing against her human's leg, both unwilling to break contact even by an inch. "I suppose you have a point," he said eventually. "All in all, though, I'm more than satisfied with the present state of affairs."

"As am I, my friend," Illya said, his own arms full of ecstatic silver fox. "As am I."

 

The trip back to Batu's camp, where they would stop to question Nergui, was interesting to manage, as the Thrush catspaw refused to ride any horse so ended up sitting in front of Ganzorig on his motorbike, and Napoleon refused to be separated from Saphina, who none of the conventional sorts of horses would go anywhere near, so the two of them were offered the rare privilege of riding on Siglinda's broad, armoured back. Illya rode one of the feisty little mongol ponies from the herd, which was almost big enough for him, while Pasha rode crouched over the animal's withers.

At Batu's camp a tape recorder was used to capture Nergui's confession. Once he'd given the location of the Thrush camp where Byrn's mate was being held, Ganzorig used Batu's radio to organize an armed posse who all gathered at Batu's a few hours later. Ganzorig also called in a few deputies to cart Nergui back to the regional justice center to be held until his case was settled.

Proving himself to be a man of boundless resources, Batu managed to borrow a motorcycle with a sidecar so that Napoleon and Illya could join the raid themselves.  
He also had spare communicators for Napoleon and Illya to call UNCLE and make their own report. They agreed that since this seemed to be some kind of retrieval operation for Thrush, and that no mad scientist or secret plans were likely involved, any Thrush prisoners taken at the camp should be surrendered to local authorities.

By the time the assault party was ready Siglinda'd had time to run and find Byrn so that he could join them. The thick forest surrounding the Thrush camp masked their approach (Napoleon and Illya left the motorcycle and proceeded on foot a mile from the camp) and their appearance came as a complete surprise. There was a brief exchange of gunfire but then the Thrush leader made the mistake of threatening the hostage.

Byrn's massive form came catapulting, heedless of any danger, through the hail of gunfire to the man holding a high powered rifle to his mate, and bashed his head in with one swipe of his armoured paw, before he could even properly aim the weapon. Most of the rest of the Thrush men surrendered shortly thereafter, save for the few who ran off into the forest, causing some of the posse members to joke about how the local wolves would enjoy the change in their diet, if only briefly.

With the rounding up of Thrush personnel well in hand, Illya and Napoleon took it upon themselves to inspect the Thrush leader's tent, stepping around his inert and lifeless body as they entered. Inside were only a scattering of memos, maps and field reports which the two UNCLE agents took custody of. They were making a more thorough investigation of his quarters when Siglinda entered, pushing her way through the canvass door-flap.

"I still don't understand," she said as Illya examined the desk drawers for false bottoms and Pasha sniffed around the borders of the tent for anything suspicious. "Why was it necessary for these men to resort to kidnapping my aunt? We pledged ourselves to the task they assigned us and never once complained about the workload or anything else they required. We never asked why they wanted us to do these things; that was part of our agreement. I still don't know what they wanted us to find."

"No?" inquired Napoleon, replacing what was left of the mattress after Saphina had ripped it open from top to bottom, revealing nothing of interest. "I think Byrn might have begun to guess."

"And I think I've figured out the town whose name is connected with those events you were talking about, Napoleon," Illya put in. "It came to me last night —Tunguska is actually several hundred miles to the north, but sixty years ago it was probably the only town anywhere near here that had a newspaper in which the event could be written about."

"Tunguska?" Siglinda asked, clearly still mystified.

"Your people probably call the event the Taiga Starfall," Napoleon explained. "And there's a good chance you, or Byrn or someone like him knows more about it than anyone else on Earth. For the rest of us, it's more or less a complete mystery."

"Though there have been a number of tantalizing theories," Illya said, recalling a handful of truly fascinating papers he'd read on the subject. 

"Isn't that the one that some scientists thought could be a quantum black hole which fell to Earth?" said Pasha. "Thrush would certainly be more than happy to take possession of such a powerful artifact."

"And I suppose," now came a voice from outside the tent, "that means you UNCLE two-leggers think that you are the proper guardian of the remnants of the Taiga Starfall?"

Siglinda pushed the tent flap open to reveal Byrn standing at the threshold and Napoleon and Illya, daemons at their sides, stepped past her to face the Armoured Bear Chieftain and his mate who stood close beside him.

"Not at all," Napoleon said, diplomatically. "I think you and Siglinda and… Mrs Byrn…"

"Siggrunda," offered Byrn's mate. She wore not a single piece of armour nor any other adornment, yet her manner was unmistakably regal.

"Thank you," Napoleon replied with a bow. "Napoleon Solo, at your service, and this is my partner, Illya Kuryakin. In any case, the Ice Bears have ably demonstrated their ability to keep this artifact safe and well protected, as they were charged to do long ago. UNCLE has no intention of interfering."

This announcement seemed to catch Byrn completely off guard, though not so much Siggrunda, who was clearly the diplomat of the family. "It pleases me very much to hear such from UNCLE's representatives," she said. "Those who would imply that UNCLE, like all western institutions, is no friend of the Bears', will hear differently from me."

"I too, will gladly share my experience of your honorable actions in this matter," said Siglinda. "But I still don't understand why it was necessary to bring Nergui and the Windriders into this."

"Once Thrush suspected that Byrn had some idea of what they were looking for," Illya explained, putting it together himself, "they had to eliminate even the slightest possibility that Byrn would go to the Windriders for help. It would have been unlikely, but in order to protect the Ice Bears' sacred trust, there's no length he wouldn't go to—even as far as requesting assistance from Windrider local authorities. Promoting hostilities between the Windriders and the Bears in order to close any avenue of help from that direction can't have been that hard and would have had the added benefit of distracting Byrn from his higher duties."

"Especially when Nergui artificially inflated the tribute requested," Napoleon added. "All the clan leaders I talked to said they suspected it, but nobody had any way to prove it."

"And when it looked like you were about to prove it," Saphina set the last piece in place, "they concluded that UNCLE's interference had to be eliminated."

"In a way that would make them look like especially stupid, citified westerners," a new voice contributed as Batu stepped up to join them. "Discrediting UNCLE generally throughout the whole region. Your Pasha must have broken the sound barrier to find me when he did. A minute later and Thrush would've had their way. If he were my spirit steed he'd have oats and apples every day for a month after that."

Pasha made a face at this. "I'd prefer liver snacks and belly rubs," he said.

"And you shall have them," promised Illya. "As many as you like."


	6. Epilogue: "...the truth is likely the opposite."

Batu fired up the bath house when they got home and said not a word when the two agents went in together, nor when they came out again over an hour later, steam rising from their bodies as they dashed from the bath house to their guest yurt wrapped only in the local style, silk brocade robes Batu lent them. Their host had placed a pot of tea there for them, as well as a light meal. Perceptive as well as a gracious host, Batu had sensed that the two men needed some time alone after the traumas of this day.

They'd spoken little while they soaked and relaxed in the steaming hot water, letting each other process everything that had happened. Illya had supposed that he would wait for Napoleon to speak first, as his ordeal had clearly been worse, but as they sipped their tea and nibbled on pieces of smoked goat cheese and flatbread, Illya found the words on his tongue before he realized it.

"I was a fool," he said, then silenced himself, but it was too late. Just Napoleon's raised eyebrow was enough to compel the rest. "For thinking that our professional lives and our personal lives could be placed in neat compartments, separated and tidy."

"I'd say you were right," Napoleon said, "but then I'd have to admit that you're in good company. I've thought the same thing myself… and presumed that if things didn't stay in those separate compartments, then the fault was mine."

"Napoleon, nobody can really live like that," Saphina admonished. "Life doesn't let you."

"It most certainly does not," Illya said with a pained grimace. "Especially in our line of work, it would seem."

"And you think it should?" Pasha asked. "Or that life would be easier if you could live like that?"

"No," Illya said, shaking his head. "Which is why I am a fool. I could never have helped you, Napoleon, without… that which is between us. You say that you might have lied about being lovers with April or Mark, but I don't think I could have done what I did with you with April or Mark… or anybody else."

"You asked me to trust you, Illya," Napoleon said. "They both trust you too, with their lives…"

"But not in the same way," Saphina picked up. "Not as… deeply."

There was a time, Illya recalled, that he'd believed allowing such a profound connection with anyone (save for Pasha) constituted a danger.

"You know," Pasha now put in, "that when Thrush tells us clearly, time and again, that they perceive such things, like trust and loyalty…"

"And love," said Saphina softly.

"And love," Pasha confirmed, "as weakness, we ought to take from it that the truth is likely the opposite."

"It does make us stronger," Napoleon confirmed. "But I have to remind myself of that, when it occasionally seems to leave us more vulnerable."

"I feel the same," said Illya, finishing his tea and moving to sit by the door, gazing out at the starry night sky. "And I do not think we are wrong. We are vulnerable, but mainly to each other. After all, if I rely on you to rescue me, as I did when Byrn caught me in the radio shack, I will be in a very bad situation, and probably dead, if you fail to appear —which you never have, but…"

"It certainly looks as if you are quite vulnerable, to someone who doesn't know us," Pasha finished.

"On the other hand, if I weren't used to being vulnerable to you," Napoleon pointed out. "If I weren't prepared to set aside everything I know and believe, just because you told me to, I would never have been able to get past the feeling that my soul was being ripped from my body, on the faith that you told me that I could hold out for just a little longer."

As though he'd felt a chill wind blow in through the door, Illya shuddered inwardly at Napoleon's description of his ordeal. "I imagine the drug helped," he said after a moment.

"Illyushka," said Saphina, standing beside him, then pushing herself into his lap. "You saved us today; you did it, as no one else in the whole world could have."

"The drug sort of made it impossible not to listen to you," Napoleon said. "At the start, anyhow, but the fact that it was you… that was what made everything else possible."

"I had to," Illya said, finally letting his fingers run through Saphina's velvety fur, knowing how the touch on his daemon would affect Napoleon. "I don't know when I've felt so desperate in all my life." Illya buried his face in Saphina's ebony, silken flank and feeling her lick his hand in return.

"My Illyushka, you've never failed me," Napoleon said, coming up behind him to lay a hand over his shoulder. "If it seems at times that we work miracles for each other, it's because of who we have become to each other. It's how we do what we do. Waverly knows that."

Illya reached up to cover Napoleon's hand with his own while Saphina draped herself over his lap and Pasha settled himself on Napoleon's shoulder. "The day may yet come when it's not enough, you know," he said, recalling the long moment when he'd recently been fairly certain that day had come.

Napoleon shrugged, while at the same time drawing Illya a little closer, letting him know that he knew where those dark thoughts had come from. "We're not immortal," he said. "no one is, especially not in our business, but as long as we continue to lend our considerable talents towards The Good Fight, we'll only get better until that day comes."

"Well," said Illya, leaning into Napoleon's side as he looked down at the expanse of black fur over his knees. "I don't know how much more 'miraculous' we can get after what you did today."

Saphina lifted her head to lick a front leg —the gestural equivalent of a shrug. "We all do what needs to be done." she said.

"I think terrifying the horses was the easy part, yes?" commented Pasha, curling his tail around Napoleon's neck as he leaned down to address Saphina. "Telling me to leave and run for help while you were still trapped in that cage… I can't imagine."

Now both Illya and Napoleon turned to gaze at their own daemons. They had not had time yet to discuss what had happened to their daemons while they'd been apart and Illya felt suddenly remiss.

"Saphina, my love, how did you get out?" Napoleon asked.

"The cage was bent and damaged when it fell off the roof of the truck," she explained, with a nonchalance that matched Napoleon's. "A gap opened in one corner which Pasha was able to slip out of. I knew that if I worked at it long enough I would be able to force my way out eventually, and that there was nothing he could do to help by staying."

"She won't say," Illya heard his daemon whisper into Napoleon's ear, "but she was in great pain as well."

Of course, she must have been, Illya thought, just as Napoleon had been. "We all do what we must," she said again, curling herself off Illya's knees and flowing, like liquid running uphill, to climb Napoleon's shoulders and lick his face. Now one of Napoleon's arms was full of Saphina and the other still wrapped around Illya's shoulder so that he began to tilt backwards, dragging Illya down with him.

Napoleon always telegraphed his moves when he was feeling randy, giving Illya a chance to evade if he wished. Strictly speaking, Illya concluded, their mission was complete, and after one so harrowing they could both use the release. He let Napoleon capture him, let Saphina and Pasha drag him by his beautiful silk brocade robe to the sleeping platform, and let Napoleon know, the best way he knew how, that they were both alive and well.

Napoleon reciprocated with all the tenderness and affection he dared show only Illya, so that Illya too knew the joy of being alive and loved by this singular person. This was how, he supposed, the intensity of their experiences, their pains sorrows and fears fueled the intensity of their touches, the depth of their kisses, the power of their lovemaking. The ecstasy of their joining in turn fuelled their strength to endure, to fight The Good Fight, as Napoleon had termed it.

It would all end some day, Illya knew, but until that day he would be more than satisfied with his lot. For that reason, he would not fear that day, as long as all the days leading up to it had him at Napoleon Solo's side.

=FIN=

**Author's Note:**

> The Tunguska Meteorite, or Tunguska Event as it is also known, did really happen, in real history, in 1908, rather closer to the town of Tunguska in Siberia. I moved it for the purposes of getting the Ice Bears and Thrush down into Mongol territory. There was a lively theory that the real Tunguska event, which flattened 770 square miles of forest but left no crater, really was a tiny or fragmentary 'quantum black hole', and a number of far better science fiction writers than I have [played extensively with this idea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event_in_popular_culture#Literature). 
> 
> Today it's considered by most scientists to have been a meteorite which exploded in the atmosphere, much like the one that so many Russian dash-cams caught in Siberia a year or so ago, but much bigger.


End file.
